The French Connection: Trilobe’s Parisian Workshop
Gautier Massonneau didn’t set out to become a watchmaker; he just wanted a nice watch. Nearly a decade later, the thirty-something Frenchman finds himself on the verge of re-establishing industrial watchmaking in the French capital with Trilobe. His partner in this evolution, Volcy Bloch, has helped steer Trilobe from design-led start-up to a vertically integrated enterprise capable of producing its own movements and, increasingly, of charting its own future. Having surrounded himself with an experienced team of watchmakers and engineers in the city’s upscale 9ᵗʰ arrondissement, Mr Massonneau has built something quietly radical: a young brand that began as an idea sketched in a Paris apartment that is now in transition to becoming a full-fledged manufacture. Initial thoughts It’s difficult to discuss the rebirth of French watchmaking without acknowledging the turbulence of the past half-century. France was once a powerhouse of horological innovation, home to Breguet, Lépine, and the great marine chronometer makers of the 18th and 19th centuries, but the industrial base began to erode after the Industrial Revolution and never truly recovered. By the late-twentieth century, the last national movement manufacturers had either collapsed or been acquired, their ambitions thwarted by globalisation and Switzerland’s ascendance. Lip, for example, was an early pioneer in electronic timekeeping, but the company’s head start wasn’t enough to insulate them from the rap...